June 10 2026, 9:20am.
"You are now free to go." Flynn, Nyx’ara’s mate and alpha, said coldly, his voice vibrating through the air in a way that made her body stiffen.
For three years, Nyx’ara Devereux rotted in prison for a crime she never committed.
First they called it murder. They said she had killed her stepsister, Elara, the same one she had caught her mate cheating on her with some days before prom. Then, they called it an attempted murder after Elara had ’miraculously’ returned from the dead, but no one questioned how she had survived after falling from one of the rooftop library’s windows.
No one wondered how the situation that had started as a suicide slowly turned into murder.
All they cared about was pinning it all on Nyx’ara. Rage and three years of neglect made Nyx’ara’s stomach churn at the sight of Flynn. She stared at the man in front of her— the same man she had loved since she was nine— and realised to her horror that somewhere along the three years she’d spent locked up in this filthy dark dungeon, the love she once felt for him had long since grown cold.
It had morphed into hatred.
And then she whispered; "T-today? Y-you will r-release me to-today?"
He nodded once. "Yes."
For three years, she had hoped to hear these words. She had wished that one day, he would come to pull her out of her anguish. But now that it was happening, she could not help but feel a tightness in her chest.
She could not help but wish that she had died long before this moment.
The skin of her back still bore whip marks from that day. Her flesh was still charred and still hurt whenever she moved too suddenly. What was worse than being locked up was the fact that every damn day for those three years, soldiers of the pack would come to her cell to whip her and punish her in ways unimaginable... and they were all working under the Alpha’s— Flynn’s— orders.
And now, Flynn was standing before her, like his orders had not stolen three years of her life. He had walked to her cell with the sure strides of a predator stalking its prey. His Alpha aura was overwhelming, pressing down at her with oppressive force. His face was a mask of indifference and his cold eyes landed on her... only for a second before disgust absolutely took over.
She felt her body vibrate as his eyes raked across her entire body slowly... deliberately. He hissed; "Elara asked for your release. She seems to have forgiven you for attempting to kill her three years ago."
But I didn’t attempt to kill her!
Nyx’ara wanted to scream back at him, but deciding that that would only sound vain, she simply lowered her head instead and stuck to her truth.
Her heart broke all over again like she had been thrown back to that day three years ago. Her hands balled into fists so tight that her nails dug into her flesh. But despite the rage, despite the irritation and the heartbreak, she still managed to force out the words;
"Okay."
Somewhere inside of her, even after the betrayal, the suffering, the neglect, and the trauma, Nyx’ara’s broken wolf still twisted painfully to meet the aura that Flynn’s presence blasted against them. She bowed her large head, muttering the word: ’Mate!’ over and over and over until it began to taste bitter somewhere in her throat.
But she didn’t give in as her wolf did. She had been broken, destroyed mentally and physically for far too long to feel anything besides contempt for the man in front of her.
His aura pressed against hers suffocatingly but she had gone through worse pressure to break under something as minor as this.
And when her eyes met his, there was something strange in them... something almost warm. Something almost human. He said softly; "I hope you have learned your lesson, Nyx’ara. I would like for us to start over on a new slate after this."
A new slate.
’A new slate.’ He had said, as if that could take away all the torture. As if that could take her back to the past and take back all the piercing words that had been thrown at her by her family...
Especially her father.
She could still remember the look in her father, Kyle’s, eyes when she had pleaded with him to believe her over Celine, her stepmother and her late mother’s best friend. But he had pushed her off, kicked her away, and seethed;
"I do not believe you. In fact, I do not know who this version of you is. I never gave birth to a daughter so vile. You are not my child."
Those words had stung. They had remained with her for the entire 1141 days that she had been locked up in her cell.
They had echoed in her mind for so long that it was the only thing she knew.
Tears stung at the corner of her eyes at the memory but brushing it off, she asked Flynn; "D-did y-you ever fi-find o-out what ha-happened that day?"
For a moment, Flynn glared at her like she was mad, and then slowly, the little warmth in his gaze dissolved into something darker.
His hand gripped one of the metal bars of her cell until it turned ashen, and he hissed; "Do you want to leave here or not? Do you want to continue to rot here or not?"
She shook her head weakly. "No."
"Then keep your mouth shut. Keep your head low and forget about three years ago!" He snapped,
But deep down, Nyx’ara knew that she could not easily forget about the day that turned her once normal life upside down. She knew she could not forget the way Elara had stared straight at her, hissed the words: "I will never allow you to marry Flynn because of some flimsy mate bond. That will only occur over my dead body!" And then jumped.
Elara had jumped.
She had not been pushed by anyone.
She was jolted out of her thoughts when Flynn slammed his fist into the barricades, making the metals protest under his raw strength.
Her eyes lifted one more time to meet his, and this time, there was no ounce of warmth left. No connection. Just some cold distance that even an apology could not cross.
He seethed; "Now, before you’re let out, you must promise to stay out of Elara’s way. You must promise that you will not repeat what happened three years ago. You must promise that you will not stand between Elara and me... and you must promise to go back to being a good daughter to your father and a good sister to your brother, Tristan."
If he had expected that she would jump for joy after hearing those unreasonable requests, then he was wrong. She simply lowered her head even more in order not to meet his gaze and muttered under her breath;
"Okay."